Watching Your Mind Die

Lovemaking lasts 20 minutes to an hour. Film Editing lasts over 24 hours.

I’ve been cutting non-stop from 4am to 9pm the next day. The only reason I’m stopping is because I have to wake up early to go do yoga. If I don’t do it, I will fossilize.

I was laughing my ass off watching Vaunt (the bully performed by Baker Chase) in the edit. He is such an asshole in the film and it makes me laugh because he is such a kindred spirit and sensitive actor in real life. I also laugh so hard watching Kimberly—the mean girl being such a bitch to Nune. It was a healthy does of Tourette syndrome.

The picture is locked. It took me forever to do it but I had to get it prepared for the music composer. I have no idea long it takes to write music—but I figured if it’s anything like editing—I’d better give it some leeway. The reason I love editing so much is because it’s more like composing music than image manipulation. It’s poetic.

I’ve been incredibly inspired to write my next short film. I don’t have plans to film another short—but I got possessed with a story—that’s living inside my head. It’s so fucking beautiful that I spend my sleeping hours thinking of the images—and getting no sleep. For two days, I couldn’t sleep because the vision was too immense.

Sometimes I block the visions because it’s too painful for me to face. It’s painful because it’s like wanting something so badly but not wanting to get your hopes up—so you try not to think about it. I’m trying not to block it because not everyone has visions. I suppose most artists say they have “ideas” or get ideas but I have visions.

I had been thinking a lot about insanity lately. From a mystical perspective, prophets go insane so that they can unblock the logical mind from interfering with the pure flow of energy that enters their consciousness.

Nune Lusparian is a girl who’s a simpleton and uneducated. The pain that Nune goes through reflects the “madness” or mental illness that society imposes upon her…and that is what drives her insane (makes her hate herself, depressed and so on).

When I was writing Nune, some people couldn’t accept that anyone could be that dumb. They didn’t get it. They didn’t believe that people like her existed. But since I grew up in the ghetto, I knew a lot of people like her—and I also faced a lot of the social pressures to appear “stupid” so that I didn’t get beat up. Poor kids hate smart people—so they push each other down. I felt that I had to write something very true to life based on the people and conditions I knew.

The people who got my story recommended a few good books that showed how beautiful the naïve mind is: FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON and DIARY OF A SLAVE GIRL. These two books show the transformation of the mind through characters immune from social conditioning or education or witness deterioration and transformation of their intellect.

A beautiful film to watch on this topic is KASPAR HAUSER by Herzog. Kaspar was a musical genius but he had no contact with humans and lived like a child in the wilderness. He was considered dumb as a doornail but because he had no filters—his consciousness was opened to the pure Genius World. And when he died, surgeons foolishly tried to dissect his brain to see where “genius” lived in there—as if it would appear as some kind of overenlarge nodule. Evidently, they didn’t get it. But Herzog did a great job laughing at the super-intellect and the cruelty of the human mind—and how it debases people.

I recently came across a video clip that I’ve been dying to share. It’s an amazing talk by a neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, who suffered from a stroke and got to witness this tragic yet beautiful experience of witnessing herself losing her mind (consciously). The video has been seen by millions and its message is timeless.

Taylor talks about how the left (logical side) of your brain sees everyone as separate but the right side of the brain (the creative side) sees everyone as the same. She watched how the left side of her brain shut down completely—and in exchange for that—she started tripping out and experienced a whole new side of reality that she’s convinced can be just as true—if we choose it.

I was deeply inspired by her video because it gave me immense clarity on how you can actually watch your left brain “think” on a daily basis just like she did. And when I saw how my brain was working and heard what it was saying, I was convinced that most of us are actually “mentally ill” and that I am also “mentally ill.” The left brain is nothing more than a stockpile of data all put together, disseminating and looking for files to help us automate, function and survive. I started to admire all the things it can do but at the same time, disagreed with the million and one filters and colors it puts onto things. Most of which are illusions.

Anyway, it’s fun to watch the mind and observe it from a conscious point of view. I think after awhile, you learn to develop a sense of humor to laugh at yourself, to laugh at life and laugh period.

About

Ji Strangeway

Sliding Sidebar

About

Ji Strangeway

Executant of the Ineffable

The Three Gates of Speech stipulates that you ask these questions before putting your foot in your mouth: Is it True? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind?
Since this doesn't fit the purpose for every occassion, the criteria for my path is:
Is it True?
Is it Necessary?
Is it Indigo?